Topic: Is FF12 coming to GameCube? (discussion/debate)

[Marcus Arillius]

Quote
Originally posted by: DrForester
Ok, what POSSIBLE hint has square given to sugest that after nearly 20 years of NEVER porting anything, outside old games to newer platforms, that Square is suddenly going to port FFXII to GC?


Wait...I know...

NONE

Actually, you may not remember but they are kinda developing for this thing called the Game Boy Advance and something else called the Gamecube, both being made by Nintendo, while alternately developing for the Playstation 2, ya know, Nintendo's biggest competitor.  As I stated before, (in other words) Square never ported anything before because they've never had ties with two competing companies at once, so none of us can really predict whats going to happen, because your right, they haven't given us hints about anything, including what they would do if they are developing for more than one console.  Square has already decided to make brand new Final Fantasy games for the Gamecube and GBA.  It is possible that they may keep FF:CC exclusive to the Gamecube so Sony can have FF:12 exclusive to it's system but someone please tell me why they would do that?  If they want to maximize their profits, which they really should try and do after that whole movie mess, they must expand to meet as large a market as possible with all their products, meaning FF:CC and FF:12 could be on all consoles, including X-box (although highly unlikely, the Japanese probaly see Bill Gates as the Devil, and I don't blame them).  However, its more likely FF:12 will be on the cube because they already have a relationship established with Nintendo.  I could be wrong about FF:12, but don't be surprised if I'm right. Square may shock us all and make some smart business decisions someday.

 

[theaveng]

Whether you see the monsters (MarioRPG/ChronoTrigger) or they ambush you (FinalFantasy), I really don't see much difference.  Either way you HAVE to fight them.  Square won't let you avoid these battles.  

And even if you could somehow avoid battles (by escaping), your characters would never level up, and you'd be so weak that the bosses would wipe you.

Anyway, I think the difference is trivial and unimportant.
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Clarifying: NES=Original Nintendo/ S-NES=Super Nintendo.  I'm using the Japanese-numbering system.
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Square's record with the Final Fantasy series is similar to Paramount's record with the Star Trek movie franchise:
FF1 =good  (NES)
FF2 =sucked (NES)
FF3 =good (NES)
FF4 =good (S-NES)
FF5 =sucked (S-NES)
FF6 =good (S-NES)
FF7 =good (PS1)
FF8 =sucked (PS1)
FF9 =good (PS1)
FF10 =debatable (50% say sucked; 50% say great)
FF11 =good (from Japanese reports)

Square has a hit-or-miss record with every third game royally sucking.




 

[Uglydot]

That trivial and non-important point is the reason many people don't buy or play RPGs...  Not exactly trivial...  I myself have stopped playing RPGs for the most part, because random battles are frustrating.  You can't take the time to prepare for a battle if it is random, you can't avoid it, and it generally occurs more often.

[manunited4eva22]

Unless someone can speak japanese and knows who to talk to at Matsushita we can only guess how much they cost. For all real reasons they would cost maybe 10 cents less than a normal dvd. In all reality though, it wouldn't matter, as there are more sides to profit structuring than material costs.

[theaveng]

"I'm not ready for battle" is not really a good excuse.  You are a team of warriors.  You should *always* be ready for battle IMHO.  Even Mario RPG had ambushes (monsters jumping from behind bushes).


Let's propose an alternate Final Fantasy 10:
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No random battles.  Instead, you see giant monsters wandering around.  That means you have the option to walk around them and never battle (except bosses are still mandatory).  So, given that you walk around the monsters, how will your characters get stronger?



ASIDE: Have you guys seen this Final Fantasy cartoon?  It's called 8-Bit Theater, and it's quite funny (in a sly, sardonic fashion): http://www.nuklearpower.com/archive.php

[WesDawg]

I love random battles. Maybe that makes me a hardcore gamer. I never knew I'd made the jump, but I started to suspect it recently. Yippee!

[Ian Sane]

"'I'm not ready for battle' is not really a good excuse. You are a team of warriors. You should *always* be ready for battle IMHO. Even Mario RPG had ambushes (monsters jumping from behind bushes)."

You are a team of warriors?  What the f*ck?  Someone's taking things a little too seriously.  A guess in Mario they should make each jump ridiculously hard with like a 10% chance of making it because it's more realistic.  You're confusing realism with fun.  Yes if you don't battle you won't be able to level up enough to beat the boss but that's your own damn mistake.  What's wrong with giving the player a choice?  If I feel like trying out the boss at a lower level then let me.  The idea of any game is it's supposed to be fun so forcing players to battle "for there own good" or whatever is counterproductive to the goal of game design.  Giving the player the option to choose when they want to fight (even if they inevatably have to) makes games more fun.  Restricting the player for no reason is often what seperates a good game from a bad one.

[Zaush]

I don't think FFXII will get ported.

I hope you all aren't forgetting the inevitable programming limitations of having multiple discs. The entire game world and it's enemies and whatnot MUST be able to fit on one disc for a multi disc port to work. Remember FFVIII? Cinema filled up so much of each disc that they were unable to pack in the entire world into the last disc, making towns and other areas inaccessible.

To port FFXII would require the entire world and it's elements to be able to fit on one disc. I believe FF:CC could do it simply because it's a completely 3d game, and will probably not even have FMV(In-game 3d cinema most likely).

Let's just hope that the next Nintendo system has a proprietary format that is somehow capable of more storage space than it's future competitors.

[manunited4eva22]

Unless someone know's who to contact and can speak Japanese we are kidding ourselves on exact costs of the mini-dvds. The most likely estimate is probablly between .80-1.30 dollars, but that is a 50 cent variation in price.

Still profit does not hinge on media costs alone, there are many other factors that go into that.

[DrForester]

Lets not forget one thing.

Square is not developing ANYTHING for the Gamecube, Square is developing for GBA.  And according to the newly developed Squ-enix, they have no plans to develop for the GC..

Square is mearly renting out some employees to make a Nintendo funded game that has the Final Fantasy title (This is in no way a shot at the game iteself).  And the director and person in charge of this Nintendo funded company was working on a PS2 project up until last December (Saga Unlimited).

[theaveng]

Quote
Originally posted by: Ian Sane
"'I'm not ready for battle' is not really a good excuse. You are a team of warriors. You should *always* be ready for battle IMHO. Even Mario RPG had ambushes (monsters jumping from behind bushes)."

You are a team of warriors?  What the f*ck?  Someone's taking things a little too seriously.

While you're playing Final Fantasy, you're meant to take it seriously.  Square's whole goal is to immerse the player into that world and involve the player into the story (just like movies/shows/books).  That includes pretending you are "a team of warriors" and always preparing them for battle.

I see your point about letting players choose when/where they want to battle (like MarioRPG/ChronoTrigger).  For me, I never cared.  I just fight everything in sight.   My advice: Use Final Fantasy's "Run Away" command if you don't feel like battling.
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MORE INFO ON DIVX:
I'm not familiar with DivX, so I went to divx.com to speak to the experts.  First, DivX is an MPEG-4 compression standard.  For comparison, PS2 and DVDs use MPEG-2, and MP3s use MPEG-1.  Next, I asked how much compression can DivX provide without loss of DVD-quality?  They answered 75% compression or 1/4 of original size.

So in theory an 8.5 gigabyte PS2 MPEG-2 disc could be compressed to 2.2 gigabytes DivX... or about 1.5 GC discs.  That's just the movies... not audio or code or textures.  Another compression method would have to be used for the latter data.

So I'll revise my original estimate that FF12 ported from the PS2 would likely require 2 GameCube discs.  It would cost Square an extra $1 in pressing costs which is trivial.